


katabasis

by hinotorihime



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: I WAS TRYING TO FIX IT AND I DONT KNOW IF I ACTUALLY DID, Lowercase, spoilers for 125
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 16:26:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18502678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinotorihime/pseuds/hinotorihime
Summary: noun (Ancient Greek): from κατὰ "down" and βαίνω "go", a descent into or journey through the underworld.(“who are you?” says the woman whose dark skin glows like copper in the greyness.“i don’t know,” says the traveller. “i don’t think things have names here.”)





	katabasis

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by talks w flammenkobold and GladHatter on discord, and the excellent fic [Drop](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18420648) by Louffox.

she wakes up cold, a throbbing ache in her back and hands. she is lying on stone. her cheek is wet where it rests against the rock. the chilly, damp air sucks the heat from her bones, but she does not shiver. 

she is so tired. something has been ripped out of her and she doesn’t remember what it was.

she gets her knees up under her hips and slowly, wincingly pushes herself up off the ground, onto shins and palms with her head hanging down, hair sticking to her back loose and tangled. there is a dark stain where her face was lying. her cheek hurts. she must have landed on sharp rocks when she fell (where did she fall from? why did she fall? where is she?). no wind jabs its freezing tendrils through the scratches; just the endless humid mist. the colour seems leached from her skin when she looks down at it. her dress was once-- she can’t think of the colour. it’s grey now, like her hands. everything is grey. grey stone and grey mist stretching out ahead of her. 

she is barefoot. one of her toenails has been ripped raggedly off. it doesn’t hurt as much as everything else does.

(she is looking for someone. who?)

she crawls to a boulder and claws at it with broken nails until she is on her aching feet leaning against it. there’s blood in her eye. she tries to wipe it away. it smears onto her hand. it’s dull and dark like a patina on silver.

(where is she going? there is somewhere she needs to go. there is someone who needs her. who?)

every step sends a wave of dizziness down her spine. she takes one, and then retches; takes two, and nearly falls again. the cold rock rips at her bare soles. 

(this is not where she is supposed to be. there is someone who needs her. there is something she needs to do.)

(what is it?)

each step takes a century. she hobbles forward over the rocks. there is no sun to shine down on the wobbling trail her bleeding feet leave behind her.

 

“who are you?” says the woman whose dark skin glows like copper in the greyness. 

“i don’t know,” says the traveller. “i don’t think things have names here.”

“where are you going?” says the woman.

“i don’t know,” says the traveller again. 

“may i walk with you?” says the woman. the traveller nods. her hair is lank and tangled around her face. it has always been lank and tangled. her feet have always been bare. her dress has always been a colour with no name.

 

day and night do not have meaning here. the traveller has always been tired and empty, so she has no need to sleep. she limps as she walks. she doesn’t know where her shoes went. she doesn’t remember what shoes are.

 

“who are you looking for?” says the woman whose golden braids loop elegantly around her face.

“who’s asking?” says the traveller, and does not know why she says it.

 

sometimes her hands move in familiar patterns, searching for something that is not there. she wants to clean the dust off of herself. she reaches, and comes up empty. whatever she is looking for, she has used it all up. she hopes whatever she used it for was worth it.

 

“who are  _ you  _ looking for?” says the traveller.

“there is someone that loves me very much,” says the woman whose white gown never seems to be stained by the grey dust or the wet mist or the dark blood on the traveller’s hands. “she wanted to save me. i did not need to be saved.”

“some people do not need to be saved,” agrees the traveller.

“who did you try to save?” says the woman.

“i don’t know,” says the traveller. “i think i failed.”

 

some of the boulders look like doors. they are not the door she is looking for. anyway, she isn’t good with locks. she knows someone who is good with locks, but they aren’t here.

 

“aren’t you hungry?” says the woman who holds the pomegranate out to the traveller, dark and red in her copper hand amid the grey, curling mist.

“i can’t accept your hospitality,” says the traveller. “there is somewhere i must go.”

“where?” says the woman.

“i don’t know,” says the traveller. “i have to apologize to someone.”

 

the grey mist comes off the river and presses into her mouth like regret, like grief, like a prayer to someone who isn’t listening. it rolls like oiled ball bearings into her lungs until she coughs, and coughs, and wipes the black blood from her lips. despair grabbing at her like a thief (like a student, like a daughter).

 

“she needs you,” says the woman who holds the traveller’s cheeks in cold-stone copper hands. “why aren’t you with her?”

“but she doesn’t need me,” says the traveller. “she doesn’t need me to decide what she needs.”

“it’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” says the woman.

“I don’t know,” says the traveller. “i don’t know.”

 

the mist cradles her bloody cheeks like a kiss, stealing the names from her mouth. her breath is cold and dry on her own skin. every step takes a century.

 

“i don’t know,” says the traveller. “i don’t know. i don’t know. i don’t know.”

“i thought you always know,” says the woman. “you always know what to do. you always know what’s best.” her hair is short and dark now, like someone the traveller can’t name.

 

her hands are dark with blood. it’s dripping from her cheek, from her nose, from her lips, from her torn feet on the stone. the wheat shrivels and burns where she steps. there is no wheat in this place. there is only grey rock, damp and cold and lifeless.

 

“rest,” says the woman. “eat. don’t look back. what is there to look back to?”

“do you think she’s alright?” says the traveller. “she is so brave. i wish she didn’t have to be so brave.”

“who stole her?” says the woman.

“she was never mine,” says the traveller. “she should not have been anyone’s. please, help me find her.”

“i am in the fire,” says the woman whose skin is pale and scarred. her crown is set with rubies like the seeds of a pomegranate. “are you going to pull me out?”

 

there is no such thing as warmth here. she stumbles over the rocks. her blood is dark, like a shattered knife, like pride, like the depths of a gravity well.

 

“i don’t know what to do,” says the traveller. 

“come with me,” says the woman. “i have not seen my mother in a very long time.”

“do you want to?” says the traveller.

the woman’s eyes glitter the green-yellow of young wheat. “why is this the first time you’ve asked that?”

 

the boulders look like doors. none of them are the right door. she will know the right door when she finds it. she tries to find the name on her tongue, but it falls off, dead in the grey half-light, clunking to the ground without an echo.

 

“you must be hungry,” says the woman who sits at the head of the table. the chair beside her swarms with serpents, coiling with a dusty rustle around an immobile figure. the flowers twined around her wrists bloom gently in the darkness, blue and yellow and red.

the traveller’s dress is red, torn and dusty and covered in blood. she shouldn’t have worn it. she should have been better prepared. 

“i thought you told me not to look back.”

“so i did,” says the woman. “are you going to listen this time?”

 

her ears buzz with the cold and the mist. she leans against the boulder and tries to cry, but the tears won’t come.

 

“who are you?” says the woman whose jacket is black and covered in silver studs. there are deep purple circles under her eyes. 

“i don’t know,” says the traveller. “i don’t think things have names here.”

“am i a thing, then?” says the little girl whose arms are too thin and wrists too boney and dress too big, too clean, too beautiful. “is that why you can’t remember? is that why the mist has stolen me from you?”

“she was never mine,” says the traveller. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry. i don’t know what to do.”

“stop looking back,” says the woman. “you mustn’t look back. does it matter if she forgives you or not? this isn’t about you. it was never about you.”

 

she breathes the mist from her lungs and searches for the name on her tongue until it falls from her mouth  _ sasha  _ and echoes against the door like footsteps, like finality, like the whisper of a breeze through a field of wheat.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> demeter parallels came into my house and coshed me with a brick
> 
> lots of mythological references here, some of the less obvious ones:  
> snake chair=theseus+pirithous  
> 'she's in the fire'=demeter is a terrible nanny  
> missing shoes+ruined dress=as well as being obvious in context, i liked the idea of a stealth reference to babylonian myth where the goddess ishtar had to remove her clothing and finery to pass through the gates of the underworld


End file.
